The Color of Courage (18 page)

Adam stood to carry the empty coffeepot into the kitchen. He radiated frustration—well, we all did—but the others were all scribbling away, concentrating on what they saw. I stepped over Trace, who was now lying on his stomach on the floor, and hurried after Adam.

He stood with his hands flat on the countertop, his head bowed. The empty pot sat on the counter next to him. I stood inside the swinging door and fought the urge to go to him. I no longer knew where the boundaries of friendship lay, and what might be misinterpreted in light of what he’d revealed to me in the park.

“You okay?” I asked from where I stood.

Adam straightened and started to fill the pot with water. “You want a pat answer or the truth?”

I walked over to the coffeepot and removed the filter holder. “Whatever you want to tell me, though the truth seems good.”

“Not good. Not lately.” He watched me dump the old grounds and scoop new ones into a clean filter. “I should have been there, Daley.”

“That’s what you said. We didn’t agree.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You think I don’t belong at the helm of this team anymore?”

“Geez. That’s not what I said.” I snapped the holder in place and he poured the water into the back of the machine. “You belong there. But nothing would have been different if you had been.”

“I would have been in the water, not you or Trace.”

“You couldn’t have calmed the dog. I would have been exactly where I was. We work as a team, Adam. You wouldn’t have changed anything.”

He didn’t respond, and I knew I wasn’t going to change his mind. His encroaching depression was broad enough that I could see it, and I didn’t know what to do to stop it. I could try to ease his emotions the way he’d been training me to do, but that seemed both an invasion and an intimacy he’d reject. He believed he should feel this way, and I would never convince him otherwise.

Why couldn’t he see that sharing the burden would make his job, his life, easier? I could do that for him. We could be partners, and accomplish so much without this struggle.

But he didn’t want that.

I tried changing the subject. Maybe looking forward, instead of back, would help.

“You see anything on the forums? Lincoln Memorial seems a likely target.”

“Yeah, I caught that, too.” His shoulders straightened a little. “And I saw some oblique references to you and Trace.”

“I missed the Trace one.”

“Did you see the part about the person who lives in the dark, but sees all?”

“Yeah. A mole?” The coffeepot burped. I started to reach for it, but it wasn’t even half-full. I settled against the counter to wait. “Where, though?”

“Not here.” It was a flat, unemotional statement. He had no doubt it wasn’t one of us. “Law enforcement, maybe.”

“Or government. Anyone who consults with us.” I saw the look on his face. “You think it’s Evan.”

“It could be.”

I bit back my instinctive denial. After all, I wouldn’t have guessed Adam’s thoughts if I hadn’t been thinking the same thing. I was assuredly biased, and I had to admit it. I couldn’t let embarrassment at my actions put us further in harm’s way.

“I slept with him.”

Adam’s body jerked. He stared at me with more blankness in his eyes than in his aura. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the counter. He blinked once.

“Did you.”

“The night of the explosion. He drove me home. I needed . . .” I trailed off, not sure how to articulate it without sounding like a wuss.

He nodded sharply. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. We didn’t talk much. I wanted to, I tried. He’d been there, helped save me. It was too serendipitous. But I was so tired.”

His jaw flexed in that familiar way, and I stepped forward and touched the muscle.

“Adam. Don’t do that. You take on too much responsibility for us, hold it too tight. You’re going to lose it someday, the worst time, worst place, if you don’t let some of it out now.”

I could feel his body vibrating with the effort of holding back. Desperate to comfort him, I put my other hand on his chest. My thumb smoothed his jaw, as if I could draw the tension away.

“Daley.” His voice was raw, his teeth clenched. “Don’t.”

“I’m so sorry, Adam.”

He broke. He pinned me to his chest, his hands clenched in my shirt. His mouth came down hard. Without thought, I parted my lips for his tongue. It plunged into me, igniting desire like a match ignites a forest fire. The kiss went on and on. My blood roared in my ears. I wrapped my left leg around his thigh, clutched his shoulders, and prayed it would never end.

“Is the coffee ready? We’re all getting a little— Oh.”

Adam released me, but not so quickly that I couldn’t regain my balance. When Summer saw my face she lunged forward, shock turning to concern and anger.

“Daley? Are you okay?” She raised her arms like she was going to fight Adam. I realized why when I touched my wet cheek. I was crying.

“I’m okay.” I turned toward the counter and wiped my cheeks. “Coffee’s just finishing. We’ll bring it out.” I waited for the sound of the door thwapping before I turned around.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” I hissed.

Adam closed his mouth, leaned away from me, and then, shoulders sagging, he stepped forward and gathered me against his chest, much more gently than he had the first time.

“I don’t know what else to say,” he murmured, “than sorry.”

Tears spilled over again. I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Only be sorry that you waited until now. Until it may be too late for us.”

He stiffened and pulled away. “You don’t—”

“I don’t know!” I lowered my voice and swatted the new tears. “I’ve been wondering for weeks what you really feel for me, and a few days ago, you made it clear that didn’t matter.”

His mouth drooped. “You were with Ian. And I had Rachel. I thought you considered me like a brother, a mentor, and I couldn’t betray that. Now . . .” He shook his head.

“Yeah, now everything’s fucked up.” I yanked the full pot out of the coffeemaker. “Forget it. This is the last thing we can concentrate on right now.”

“Daley.” He put a hand on my shoulder. I stopped, but didn’t turn. “Please . . . I know I have no right to say this, but please, don’t take it further with Evan.”

“Because of HQ, or because of you?” I whispered. He didn’t answer. His jaw flexed, like he was clenching his teeth. I stepped back, and he let me go. “That’s what I thought.”

I pushed through the door and smiled at the exclamations of relief when they saw the coffee. Trace eased to his feet and held out his mug. Summer and Kirby peered at me, their heads together. Summer whispered something to Kirby, and I glowered at her. I was just about to pour coffee for them when someone knocked on the door.

We all froze. Adam walked over and looked through the peephole, then slumped with his forehead against the door for a moment. He’d never shown such weakness in front of us, and I knew who must be on the other side. I almost told him not to open the door, but it was too late. He turned the handle and drew the door back.

Evan stepped inside.

Chapter 16

“I need to talk to you,” Evan told Adam, his aura dark with grimness.

I imagined all kinds of responses. A punch in the face, which would have been completely out of character for Adam. But then, so was the kiss I’d just gotten. A polite no followed by a shove back out the door seemed more probable. But Adam just nodded and closed the door. I couldn’t read anything he was feeling, which could have meant that his distrust of Evan professionally was subverted by his jealousy of him personally.

I expected Evan to ignore me, or at least address me the way he addressed everyone else. So I was shocked when the first thing he did was ask to talk to me alone.

Summer’s eyebrows shot so high they almost disappeared in her hairline. Kirby looked like a tennis spectator, her head swiveling between the two men. At this rate, they’d put the entire CASE investigation on hold to interrogate me about Evan and Adam.

I led Evan into the kitchen and turned, trying not to fold my arms across my chest or do anything else to broadcast my vulnerability.

“Are you okay?” he asked, not keeping the distance I’d anticipated.

I stepped back. Who cared what I broadcast? I couldn’t be that close after the kiss I’d just gotten in this exact same spot. “In what context?”

He didn’t come closer but lifted my hand. His thumb swept over the tops of my fingers. “The context of having been nearly blown up and drowned.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. We’re all doing okay. But you could have asked that out there.”

I had to pull my hand away. I meant to, but the little zips of sensation traveling from my fingers all the way up my arm and into my chest made it difficult.

“Did you sleep okay yesterday?”

I frowned. “You could have stayed to find out for yourself.” Disgusted with my retort, I managed to withdraw my hand. Hell with it. I folded my arms so he couldn’t touch skin again.

“I would have, but I had some leads I had to follow.” His hand came up to knead the back of my neck. So much for not touching skin. My eyes closed as the tension eased out. Goddamn, he was good at that.

“What kind of leads?”

“I’ll tell you all out there. Everything.”

My eyes popped open. “Everything. As in, who you are, where you came from, why you’re here?”

He nodded.

“Then let’s get on with it.” I started to back away.

“Wait.” He reached across and caught my wrist with his other hand. “I had to see you alone first. I wanted you to know . . .” He winced, as if aware of the impact of what he was about to say. “I wanted you to know I haven’t been using you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” I stepped back. His hands fell to his sides. “That wouldn’t be necessary to say if it hadn’t been true at least at the beginning.”

He didn’t deny it. But now he folded
his
arms. “When I first got here, I was looking for anything that would get me closer to HQ. But after Summer’s dinner party, well, things got complicated. It’s more than . . . whatever.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re so eloquent. Come on. I need to hear what you’ve got to say.”

Talking in the living room subsided when we emerged. I gave grateful looks to my friends for not trying to eavesdrop, but then I saw Adam’s face. With his enhanced hearing, he’d heard everything.

Dammit.

I sat back in the corner wing chair, and everyone else settled into their own seats while Evan stood in the empty space between Trace’s chair and the sofa, where Summer and Kirby curled.

“How much do you all know about CASE?” No one answered. Evan sighed. “I’ll tell you everything, I just want to know where I should start.”

“We know enough,” Trace said coolly. There was no need to guess where his loyalties lay, whether we were talking about me or about HQ.

Evan nodded. “Then you must know they plan something big to take down your organization, the way they took down Chicago and San Diego.”

“We’re thinking a staged event at the Lincoln Memorial,” I offered.

“Fake terrorist attack,” Summer added, which might have been what they were talking about while I was in with Adam and/or Evan. “To be blamed on us.”

“What’s your role in this?” Adam asked Evan.

“I used to be FBI. About six months ago, I was released and tasked to a shadow organization that works for the government but is not part of it. Their purpose is to infiltrate terrorist cells within the United States. My division grew out of that when they stumbled upon evidence of a group of fanatics who wanted to take out our nation’s superheroes. I was called in to investigate and possibly infiltrate that group, which we now know as CASE.”

A shuddering dread drew my attention off Evan and onto Summer. Her aura was swelling with it, enough for Kirby to pick up on. Kirby put her hand on Summer’s. She was staring so hard at Evan, she didn’t seem to notice. He turned to her, and the purple I’d seen at their first meeting blazed. But it couldn’t be desire. That wouldn’t make sense. But if it wasn’t desire . . .

Evan continued, his gaze still on Summer. “I was chosen for that task force for two reasons. My father was running it. And my sister is a superhero.”

“No.” Summer gave a moaning gasp and covered her mouth. My mind raced. Evan wasn’t lusting for Summer at the fitness center. He was
longing
for her. Something cracked inside me, something vital and personal, but I couldn’t focus on that. Evan and his father had been estranged from his mother and sister. His father had died. Summer was his sister. Which meant Summer’s father was dead.

And she didn’t know.

Until Evan referred to him in the past tense.

She started sobbing, both hands over her mouth now, as if she was trying to hold it in. Evan was on his knees in front of her, his hands on her wrists.

“I tried to get close to you, to tell you, but you wouldn’t let me. You played games, and I didn’t blame you. I let you. I hoped when you put Daley in my path it was because you wanted me to stay, even though you hadn’t told anyone who I was. I’m sorry, Summer. I’m so sorry.”

She let him hold her for a minute, then suddenly shoved him away. Grief, anger, and longing twisted around each other.

“When? When did it happen?”

“In Chicago. During the—”

She threw up a hand. “Don’t tell me. During the incident that killed those heroes and destroyed the team.”

He nodded. “I didn’t know where you were. After San Diego, they assigned me to come here, because they believed HQ was next. I got the case file, and . . . found you.”

Summer collected herself and knocked him back on his heels as she got off the couch. He stayed where he was, looking up at her, his pain palpable.

“You could have forced me to listen,” she accused. “You’ve been here for weeks. You let me go on, not knowing anything about Dad’s death.” Her voice caught. “How could you? Why would you do that?”

“Cowardice.” He slowly rose to his feet, braced as if anticipating an attack from her. “I knew it would crush you, and I couldn’t make myself do it. Especially when you told me you hated me.”

Summer shook her head, tears flying. “You’re an idiot. I never hated you. I was just angry that you’d taken so fucking long to find me, to make things right. I wasn’t ready to make up.”

Evan spread his hands. “How was I to know that?”

“You could have asked her!” She flung out a hand and pointed at me. Everyone looked at me for a beat.

Then my phone rang.

I dug it out of my bag to silence it, but accidentally accepted it instead. It was my mother.

“Why are you telling her this now?” Adam asked Evan.

“Hello?”

“Turn on the TV,” my mother urged. “Local.”

“Because there’s no more time,” Evan said. “We thought there’d be the same slow build there was in Chicago and San Diego, but you’re not reacting the same way.”

“Daley? Are you doing it?”

I tore myself away from the others and searched the floor and tables for the remote. “Hang on.”

“What do you mean?” Kirby said. “We’re responding to calls and failing.”

Why couldn’t men leave the remote in the same place when they were done? I circled the sofa and bent over the back so I could dig between cushions.

“Where are you?” My mother’s voice cracked. “What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for the remote. I’m at Adam’s. We were working . . .” Ah, there it was. I aimed it at the TV and hit the power button.

“You’re not failing,” Evan was saying. “You’ve foiled their every objective. They’ve escalated very fast, and we’ve intercepted some intel that indicates they’re leaping ahead to the end game.”

The screen faded in on the NFL Network. I flipped channels, looking for the news. Adam had held up a hand to stop Evan and was watching me. I saw a flash of familiar blue and gray and flipped back to that channel. I stared, aghast.

“I’ve got it, Mom. Thanks.” Without thinking, I disconnected. Everyone was now watching the TV.

Watching as people dressed in
our
suits stood on a roof, surrounding a group of preschool children, clearly holding them hostage. The commentator was saying they didn’t know what HQ hoped to accomplish with such a foolish, dangerous act. The news chopper circled the building, and we could see police helicopters on the other side, hovering. The megaphone sound was distorted so we couldn’t hear what they were saying, but a moment later, the three people disappeared over the side of the building, leaving the kids. The news camera lost them for a minute and when they came around, the three were gone.

The anchor came on screen, looking solemn and confused. “That happened half an hour ago at the Secure Learning Day Care Center in Northwest. The school’s director refused to speak to us about how exactly those children were taken to the roof, but a spokesperson for the police says no one was hurt in the bizarre situation. Three apparent members of the local superhero agency known as HQ demanded that proposed legislation to regulate superhero activities be withdrawn.”

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Trace growled.

Adam stalked to a closet near the door and jerked his suit out. “Where are your suits?” he demanded.

“Mine’s in the car,” Summer said.

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. “I took it with me when I left the hospital.”

Dread swept over me. “I didn’t.”

They all turned.

“I was sedated when I got there. They must have removed it, and I never realized I didn’t have it.”

Adam looked at Trace. “Yours?”

He shook his head tightly. “No. I think it got left in the boat.”

“The boat probably being piloted by CASE members.”

He nodded.

Adam cursed under his breath. “Kirby had hers on that whole time, so—”

“No.” Kirby looked stricken. “I mean yes, I did, but I don’t have it now. Charles asked for it so his guy could upgrade us. He sent a courier over for it.”

“So the courier could have been intercepted and replaced by a CASE operative. Fuck!” This time it wasn’t under his breath.

“Look.” Evan nodded at the TV. Our headquarters was now on screen.

I raised the volume.

“A police raid on HQ’s offices have turned up nothing. The next step is unclear . . .”

Not to us. Pounding sounded behind me, on the door. I checked out the window and saw half a dozen police cars on the street. I imagined the scene was similar all over the city, as they simultaneously hit our homes.

Lucky them, to catch us all in one place.

“Open up, police!”

Adam’s composure clicked into place, and the leader took over. “Everyone, come over here.” He pointed to the wall by the kitchen door. “Stand where they can see you when they come in. Cooperate. The sooner we can convince them it wasn’t us, the sooner we can address the end game.”

He opened the door slowly, his hands in the air, and was immediately swarmed with cops. We all stood still, quiet and compliant, as we were cuffed and hauled away.

Thirteen hours later, I accepted my cell phone and wallet from the clerk at the station and emerged, alone, onto a dark, sinister-looking street.

They’d questioned me forever, probably trying to get me to change my story. We all had alibis for each other, which rendered them meaningless. Evan being there helped, and he had solid credentials despite his organization technically not existing. But because he hadn’t been at the apartment when the incident at the school started, it wasn’t a complete alibi. The officer who told me I’d made bail—Charles had apparently paid it for all of us—said the hospital staff had provided statements that Summer and Trace were in no condition to do what they’d seen on the news. The staff at the other hospital, where I was taken, had reported that my suit was unaccounted for. They had no record of transfer of possession back to me.

The clerk at the police station said their phones were ringing off the hook with calls from people we’d helped who couldn’t believe we’d have done such a horrible thing.

We weren’t universally beloved. The news had been on at the sign-out counter, still reporting on the incident. Reporters were interviewing people on the street who claimed they’d known all along we were trouble. They’d rather take their chances with the criminals than seek help from us.

I’d thought I was tired two days ago. As I stood on the steps in front of the precinct, I didn’t know who had already been released and who hadn’t. The fact that I was let out alone told me they were probably going to follow each of us, and it was easier to do it one by one than if they let us all go at once. I couldn’t go home, because my apartment building had been on TV and was probably still surrounded by media. Ditto HQ, which was also now a target not only of CASE, but of any vigilante who was threatened by or jealous of anyone with enhanced abilities.